My clothes were placed on a narrow shelf at my feet, and it was a great comfort to me to know that my pistol was so handy, for I made no doubt we should fall in with Pirates before many hours.

This is the last thing I remember with any distinctness.

At midnight, as I was afterwards told, we were struck by a gale which never left us until we came in sight of the Massachusetts coast.
For days and days I had no sensible idea of what was going on around me.
That we were being hurled somewhere upside-down, and that I didn't like it, was about all I knew.

I have, indeed, a vague impression that my father used to climb up to the berth and call me his "Ancient Mariner," bidding me cheer up.

But the Ancient Mariner was far from cheering up, if I recollect rightly; and I don't believe that venerable navigator would have cared much if it had been announced to him, through a speaking-trumpet, that "a low, black, suspicious craft, with raking masts, was rapidly bearing down upon us!" In fact, one morning, I thought that such was the case, for bang! went the big cannon I had noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on board, and which had suggested to me the idea of Pirates.